TOO DARN GOOD!
Celebrations flow as Broadsiding becomes first southern hemisphere-bred Group 1 winner for Darley’s exciting shuttle stallion Too Darn Hot
Booming Darley shuttler Too Darn Hot (Dubawi) racked up his second Group 1 winner from his first global crop when Godolphin’s Broadsiding ploughed through the Randwick mud to win Saturday’s Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m).
Ridden by James McDonald, the late-blooming Broadsiding backed up from his maiden victory over the same course in last Saturday’s Fernhill Stakes (Listed, 1600m) to emerge an elite-level hero from his first attempt at boggy conditions, the track having been downgraded to a Heavy10 before the race.
Well supported as a $3.30 second favourite, the strapping fifth-starter became the first colt to win a top-level two-year-old race this season, following the victories of fillies Hayasugi (Royal Meeting) in the Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m), Lady Of Camelot (Written Tycoon) in the Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) and Manaal (Tassort) in the ATC Sires’ Produce (Gr 1, 1400m).
He also became the first southern hemisphere top-tier winner for eight-year-old Too Darn Hot, the triple Group 1-winning stallion owned in partnership by Darley and the Watership Down stud of Andrew Lloyd Webber and his wife Madeleine.
Too Darn Hot’s owners will be delighted by the stallion’s instant impact. Broadsiding’s Champagne Stakes follows up his northern hemisphere Group 1, earned by Fallen Angel in Curragh’s Moyglare Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 7f) last September, her third win and second at Group level from four starts.
The shuttler has stood for four consecutive seasons at Darley’s Kelvinside farm at $44,000 (inc GST) and given his results on the track and at the sales – his second-crop yearlings averaged $233,000 this year, up from $184,361 last year – he may be set for an increase.
The Champion European colt of his two- and three-year-old seasons, who also had second-top lot at the Gold Coast in January courtesy of his $1.9 million colt from A Time For Julia (Redoute’s Choice), has six stakes winners and 42 winners from 101 runners worldwide, One of them – Alyanaabi – also ran second in one of the Group 1s his father won, Newmarket’s Dewhurst Stakes (Gr 1, 7f).
Too Darn Hot added to his winning tally in Australia on Saturday, with the Ciaron Maher-trained Perspiration breaking his maiden in the Mornington Sires (1200m) earlier in the afternoon.
In Australia, he already began Saturday leading the first-season sires’ list by winners, with his eight from 19 runners also putting him equal top on the two-year-old table.
He now also heads the first-season sires’ list by earnings as well, after Broadsiding contributed $580,000 to the cause yesterday.
Until recently, Too Darn Hot’s previous best-known runners here have included Arabian Summer. The Team McEvoy filly won over 1000 metres and 1100 metres in key Magic Millions lead-ups at Ballarat and the Gold Coast before a good fifth in the main event, the Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) behind Storm Boy (Justify).
At that meeting another of his daughters, Too Darn Lizzie, part-owned by Lord Lloyd Webber, stormed to an impressive win in the $500,000 The Debut 2YO Fillies Plate (1000m), before a close third in Randwick’s Reisling Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m).
But now top billing has been emphatically settled through Broadsiding’s late emergence.
Representing some heavy artillery from his breeders Godolphin/Darley – by their undisputed star shuttler out of a Street Cry (Machiavellian) mare, dual provincial winner Speedway, Broadsiding has gone from an innocuous debut fourth at Ballarat on February 25 to last week becoming Too Darn Hot’s first Australian stakes-winner, to now being a Group 1 victor.
Broadsiding settled second-last of the eight on Saturday, was fifth on the turn as the field spread, and doggedly ground past John O’Shea’s $4.20 third-favourite Linebacker (Super Seth) to score by 0.76 lengths. Team Snowden’s Fearless (Pierata, $14) was a distant third, ahead of $2.50 favourite Manaal.
“To be the first two-year-old colt to win a Group 1 this season is amazing,” said Godolphin’s head trainer James Cummings. “I begged James [McDonald] to ride the horse that way and it’s really paid off. He performed so strongly.”
As Randwick again showed the dark side of its split personality – fast to improve once rain stops, but horribly quick to deteriorate when it starts – Cummings was heartened before the race by Too Darn Hot’s own wet track form.
“He [Broadsiding] has loved that quick back-up, he’s excelled once he’s got to the mile, and that’s the class of the European pedigree coming through, and that told in the finish,” he said.
“He’s got this very interesting future about him, being by Too Darn Hot, an emerging sire for us. He was an exceptional two-year-old himself. He won by seven lengths on debut as a two-year-old over a mile on a softish track. That gave me a little bit of confidence about today.
“This colt’s out of a Street Cry mare, he’s got a big future. He’s just done such a great job this prep to keep improving and get all the way here to the final [two-year-old] Group 1 in Sydney, and as the first colt to win a Group 1, it’s a big performance.”
Cummings said Broadsiding had been “a real work in progress”.
“He’s the type of horse that has improved with a lot of experience, a lot of handling,” Cummings said. “We took him for a trip to Melbourne and back. A lot of that travelling has helped wake him up and mature the horse.”
A mud-splattered McDonald – now three Group 1s off equalling Malcolm Johnston’s Australian record of 16 in a season – was full of praise for Broadsiding.
“He’s a great trier. He had it written all over him last start, so I came here with good confidence,” he said. “I thought he’d handle the conditions well, he’s a nice, fit horse.”
Saturday’s win brought Cummings his 46th Group 1 – and in the same race in which he won his first with Prized Icon (More Than Ready) in 2016 before joining Godolphin.
Broadsiding is the second and last foal of Speedway, who died in 2022, with half-brother No Brakes (Lonhro) transferred last year to Tony Gollan and still awaiting his first start.